The photograph was meant to convey that everything is fine in the ruling BJP.
Two of the most consequential BJP figures in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district — cabinet minister Govind Singh Rajput and former minister Bhupendra Singh Thakur – crammed into the backseat of a vehicle, waving at crowds as they toured with the new state BJP president Hemant Khandelwal on Wednesday.
“The BJP in Sagar stands united. There is no factionalism,” Khandelwal declared later in the evening.
The occasion, Khandelwal’s inaugural tour of Sagar, was a careful political exercise to paper over factional fissures that have defined the region’s political landscape for nearly two decades.
Khandelwal, who was elevated to the post earlier this year, began his interventions days before he arrived in Sagar, “personally calling both Rajput and Thakur directly”, party functionaries said. He also “dispatched party vice-president Shailendra Barua as an emissary, instructing the two rivals to set aside their antagonism for the duration of the visit”, said a functionary. The message was unmistakable: this was a directive from above, delivered with the weight of organisational authority.
The choreography intensified on Wednesday evening. Khandelwal arrived at Rajput’s residence accompanied by Thakur, local MLAs, and the full complement of party functionaries – a public declaration that the two men would, at minimum, coexist in the same physical space without incident.
“They joined a procession from Bijli Chowraha to Kila Kothi and shared two meals within two hours. Each gesture was calculated to generate the precise signal required that the animosities, if not resolved, are at least subordinate to party interests,” said a senior leader.
The two factions
The antagonism between Rajput and Thakur stretches back over two decades.
Rajput is the beneficiary of one of the BJP’s most significant recent acquisitions. When he joined the party in 2020 after leaving the Congress with Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia’s faction, Rajput quickly became an important leader and was rewarded a cabinet post in the government. Even in the Mohan Yadav government, he is the Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection, something which has angered Thakur.
Thakur, by contrast, represents the older guard. A five-time MLA from Khurai and a veteran of former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cabinet across multiple terms, he embodies the institutional BJP – the organisation that built the party’s dominance in the Bundelkhand region through years of grinding work.
Said a senior leader in Bhopal, “For the new party president, resolving internal conflicts is key. There are many instances of leaders airing grievances publicly rather than before official party sources. Instead of issuing diktats from Bhopal, Khandelwal is trying to have one-on-one conversations with these leaders to understand their angst and think of solutions.”
Khandelwal will also have to assuage leaders associated with former CM Chouhan, who have been disappointed with a lack of ministerial posts and have begun airing their grievances to the central leadership. Simultaneously, there are Scindia loyalists, who are feuding with state assembly speaker Narendra Singh Tomar’s faction, party functionaries said.
They also highlighted the fact that senior leaders Kailash Vijayvargiya and Prahalad Patel have been resisting Chief Minister Yadav’s dominance in state politics, and are potential power centres who could challenge the BJP’s narrative of a united party in the future.
Said a senior party functionary, “Over the course of his tenure, Khandelwal plans to hold more such meetings, sharing lunches and pleading with various factions to come on common ground, at least for the party function. He is a down-to-earth leader with no political baggage, so people listen to him.”